What Caregivers Can Learn From Working With Rescued Abused Children In Rural Yunnan
7 a.m. at the small child welfare rescue center outside Chuxiong, Yunnan. The cement dining hall floor is still damp from mopping, the overhead fan hums so loud it drowns out most of the kids’ chatter, and the congee in the big metal pot is still steaming. I was reaching for a second steamed bun when I noticed Xiao Mi, the 8-year-old who’d arrived two days before, was gone. I glanced under the table and there she was, curled around a cracked plastic rabbit she’d pulled from the trash out back, one ear missing, dirt crusted under her nails.
I’ve volunteered here six months. Most kids are removed from abusive homes by local child protection staff, many from remote mountain villages where no extended family can take them in. I knelt down, didn’t reach for her, just held out the sesame bun I’d grabbed for myself. She flinched, and threw a small pebble at my wrist, hard enough to leave a faint red mark.
Back then, all of us at the center were still learning as we went. We’d read a few thin pamphlets, we knew we were supposed to tell her she was safe now. So the first few days, that’s what we did. Every time she came out of hiding, someone would say “You’re safe here, no one will hurt you.” But it didn’t work. If someone walked too fast past her chair, she’d scramble under a bed. If a kid raised their voice during a game, she’d lock herself in the supply closet. One afternoon, a volunteer dropped a cast iron pan while washing dishes, it clattered so loud the windows shook, and Xiao Mi didn’t come out from under the couch for two hours, even when we brought her favorite candied hawthorn.
I started talking to Auntie Li, the local child protection worker who’d picked Xiao Mi up, who’s been doing this work 20 years with no fancy degree, just a beat-up bicycle and a lot of patience. She told me something that stuck: these kids don’t need you to tell them they’re safe. They need you to show them, one small thing at a time, that they get to say what happens to their body and their space.
I started changing small things with Xiao Mi, and it didn’t cost anything or require extra training. First, I started pre-announcing every little movement before I did it, even the most mundane. If I was going to walk past the spot where she was sorting sticks, I’d say out loud “I’m going to walk past you now to get the water bucket, okay?” If I needed to get her attention, I’d stand a few feet away and ask “Can I tap your shoulder to show you this drawing?” before I touched her. I never pushed her to sit next to me, or hug anyone, or join a game if she didn’t want to. If she wanted to sit three feet away from me while I graded school work and sort my colored pencils over and over, that’s what we did. I just left the extra pencils on the floor next to her and didn’t say a word.
Three weeks after she arrived, I was on night shift, and I heard her crying softly from the dorm. I brought a jar of warm honey water, and I stopped in the doorway, didn’t step inside. I said “I heard your stomach hurts. I brought warm water, I’ll leave it right here on the step if you want it. I won’t come in unless you say I can.” After about a minute, I heard her whisper “come in.” That was the first time she’d let me in the same room with her without hiding. I sat on the opposite end of her bed, didn’t touch her, just waited while she drank the water, and then I left when she said she wanted to be alone.
These lessons aren’t just for rescue centers in rural Yunnan. Any foster parent, classroom teacher, or family caregiver can use these small adjustments, no special resources needed. A lot of people I talk to think you need to be a licensed therapist to help a kid who’s experienced abuse, but the biggest changes I’ve seen come from these tiny daily choices. For example, if you have a kid like this in your classroom, you can let them sit in the back near the door, so they can step out for a minute if they feel overwhelmed, instead of forcing them to sit up front with the group. When you need to correct behavior, keep your tone steady, don’t raise your voice, and stick to clear, simple rules. If a relative wants to hug them and they pull back, you can step in and say “They don’t feel like a hug right now, how about a high five instead?” That’s something anyone can do, no preparation needed.
Another thing I changed after working with Xiao Mi: when they act out, like throwing a rock or breaking a pencil, don’t rush to punish them. I used to think we needed to correct bad behavior immediately, but what I learned is that most outbursts are just a kid saying they’re scared, that their guard is down. After Xiao Mi threw that pebble at me, I didn’t yell or send her to her room. I just said “You were scared I was going to hurt you, so you threw the rock. That’s okay. My wrist is fine. I’ll stay over here if that’s better for you.” That short, simple phrase worked better than any lecture I could have given.
It’s been four months now. Xiao Mi still hides when new volunteers come to the center. She still won’t hold anyone’s hand, and she still runs to the closet if there’s a sudden loud noise. There’s a lot we still don’t know about what she went through before she came here, and there’s a lot we still get wrong. Some days we’re short-staffed, someone forgets to ask before touching her, and she shuts down for the rest of the day.
Last week, though, she drew a picture. It was a rabbit, with two whole ears, colored in with pink crayon. She didn’t bring it to me directly, just left it on my chair while I was out getting water. I taped it to the peeling chalkboard in the classroom, right next to the other kids’ drawings. The water still cuts out most afternoons, we still run out of school supplies sometimes, and there’s no neat ending to this. But the small stuff sticks. Pre-announcing. Asking permission. Letting them set the distance. That’s the work, most days. It’s not fancy, but it’s what works.
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